This past year was not good at all in terms of storage ... the candy started sprouting around Christmas and the copra were greening last month. I think it was due to some wet conditions around harvest that just wouldn't let them cure properly since I tried to store them at temps varying from 38 degrees in the basement to 60 in the pantry and they all went much quicker than usual.

Winter's been really slow for this forum - that and all the upgrades on the site making it tough to stay connected. Hopefully spring'll be here soon and traffic will pick back up.

Makalu I have had the same problem yrs. when it was a wet harvest. Stil better than buying them at the store.Ya have a good yr. every now and then. I guess this was mine. Hope you have better luck this fall!!!
YOPPER P.S. Ya can't hardly beat them CANDY

Yopper - Thanks and I have to agree with you ... for a supposedly day neutral onion, Candy has been a consistent performer up in long day territory and they're darn fine eating!

hey yopper how's it going in the frozen tundra? it's still cold here but winter is definately over as in look how high in the sky the sun is or how warm the sun feels even on a cold day. oh a cold day is now 42 not 22!

as to my onions, candy kept so well that i can't imagine an onion as sweet ever keeping this long! i have 1 or 2 left from around 32 or 34 pounds. very sweet, excellent storage, i had maybe 1 or 2 go bad or sprout. ace never kept past mid feburary and this is 3/21!!

red wing has stored excellent tho it is a good keeper. i have about 32- 35 pounds and used about 1/2 of that so far. i had 2 or 3 get soft and maybe 1 or 2 sprout but i'd say 95% are just fine. another excellent onion!

copra? not sure! i have 32 - 34 pounds but i have yet to eat one! copra stores so well i have no fears about them. one year i was eating copra in october that were pulled in august from the prior year! i will go thru the copra later today as i just ignored them all winter. i should not do that just in case some have rotted but it is very unlikely in my past experiences with copra.

i store the candy and red wing in a basement fridge at 40 degrees. the copra are in the garage but with temps in the 40s even 60's some days i need to move them to the fridge.

as far as storing them upside down, what's the rational for that? maybe storing them rightside up makes more sense as that is how they grew. :) frankly, i store my onions in 50 pound mesh bags that were onion bags. candy are so large they fill the bag but no way would 50 pounds fit in the bag - they are too big. keeping them cold, 37 degrees is perfect, is important in addition to properly curing them and holding back water when the tops start to fall. i have good luck in my storage. the exception was mars. i liked it (a red onion) but they often had root rot problems and i lost a lot in curing them and in storage so i gave up on mars. red wing is excellent.

as far as "where are people", well gw has gotten to be really annoying since ivillage took over so i seldom come here. i check in every month or 2 tho at the allium forum. i have stopped reading at other gw forums (i look at the tomato forum but seldom post) and other gardening websites too. it is just too time consuming. i have netzero dial up with an old pc from 2000! it is very slow and i connect at 42667 bps which is fast for dialup! i am in the process of buying a new pc (after 8 years it's like driving a car made in the 20's!) and getting dsl so i may return when i can do things at a reasonable speed.

so is bill (gonefishing) not at the tomato or vegetable forum? i liked bill he was an ok guy and i liked reading his posts. he was in his 70's i think and his wife was really ill. i wonder if that has anything to do with bill's lack of time at gw? i hope all is well, hey --- you out there bill??????

i almost fell off my chair at the title of your post yopper! i thought you meant onions growing outside vs sprouting in storage!!!!! my onions are up, i planted seeds on feb. 22. this year instead of buying fresh seed for the 1st time i used seeds from the prior year. onion seed is supposed to be good for 1 year only but i had a fair amount of all 3 so i planted 12 of each in january to check germination. it was pretty good so i decided to take a chance. candy did swell. copra was a bit low but produced just enough if none die (50% germination) and red wing was poor at about 30%. so a week ago i planted all the remaining copra and red wing and they are coming up pretty good so i'll have enough to plant in about 3-4 weeks.

tom

yopper et al,

i was going to send him an email (and still will) but decided to do a search instead.

i did a search on gonefishin and got over 500 hits.i did find that bill posted on 2/13/08 in a thread and he may have posted since that date but when i found 2/13/08 i stopped looking. so bill is around, that's good to know.

tom

Onions left in my garden last year have started to sprout. Is it okay to transplant them or should I design my rows around their current location?

Guys, Gonefishin passed away a few years ago. There was a tribute page for him on GW, sorry don't have a link. He was well liked and will be missed.